Thieving Skill Values?

Morvian

When I play thieves I'm usually a multiclass. So I just dump all my points into traps and locks. I'm thinking about playing one of the kits, not sure which yet. Maybe Bounty Hunter. But I'm curious how high I should take my skills. I don't really understand how the skills work. What value do I need to reliably open locks and disarm traps? How does detect illusion work, and how high should I take that skill? What about setting traps? Another thread somewhat answered the stealth question, but my poor math abilities fail to understand how much I need in the stealth skills to do well.

I'm mainly looking for these answers in the context of BG:EE. However, I'll probably recreate the character in BG2 and play there as well if I like the experience. So if you can make some references to the expansion I'd appreciate it

ajwz

I usually assign locks and traps to around 60 as fast as possible. Then throughout the course of the game, they get levelled up to 100. Don't need to go higher than that.

Corvino

If you plan on going to Durlag's Tower (you should) then you'll need a find traps of at least 80% (and use potions to boost it), but 100% is better. Ditto for pick locks. If you have maxed Dex you should be able to get 100% pick locks and finds traps by about level 6-7 depending on race and kit.

Most traps in the game do not require this, Durlag's Tower is just a crazily hard dungeon for endgame parties.

Detect illusion is less valuable in BG1 as there are not as many mage encounters, and the only thing you'll be detecting is invisibility or mirror image. While this is quite useful a dispel/remove magic or similar is as reliable. Detect illusion shines in BG2 as it's not stopped by spell immunity: divination, in BG1 it's overkill.

If you're a bounty hunter then your special traps work automatically and don't need set traps points, which helps get around their paucity of points.

Corvino

Also, while stealth is nice and backstabs are fun they're slightly less important than getting your party through a trapped, guarded maze alive. Find traps is essential, open locks is really useful, stealth means that sometimes you get a powerful opener which can take out a caster before they cause mischief.

If you have 2 thieves, then have one stealthed up. If you only have one then get your traps/locks maxed and stick to your bow. Traps & locks are the cake, stealth is the cherry on top. In BG2 you'll have enough skill points to have said cake & eat it.

Oxford_Guy

Corvino said:

Also, while stealth is nice and backstabs are fun they're slightly less important than getting your party through a trapped, guarded maze alive. Find traps is essential, open locks is really useful, stealth means that sometimes you get a powerful opener which can take out a caster before they cause mischief.

Stealth isn't just for setting up backstabs, though, it's also to scout our ahead of your party, so that you can tell when a tough-looking encounter is coming up and buff-up without overly metagaming, of course a ranger can also perform this role, except in evil parties

Corvino said:

If you have 2 thieves, then have one stealthed up. If you only have one then get your traps/locks maxed and stick to your bow. Traps & locks are the cake, stealth is the cherry on top. In BG2 you'll have enough skill points to have said cake & eat it.

In my current game I'm running 2 thieves for this reason - I have Monty focused on stealth for scouting and backstabs and Imoen (non-dualed) on traps/locks and also some in pick-pockets

Nic_Mercy

One thing I recall is that while detect illusion, open locks and find traps cap out at 100%, pick pockets, move silently and hide in shadows benefit from going higher than 100% to counteract difficulty penalties associated with npcs.

toanwrath

Oxford_Guy said:

Stealth isn't just for setting up backstabs, though, it's also to scout our ahead of your party, so that you can tell when a tough-looking encounter is coming up and buff-up without overly metagaming, of course a ranger can also perform this role, except in evil parties

I find the invisibility spell also works great for scouting in evil parties. Montaron in my game has focused on locks and traps, and I am doing Durlag's a bit early (around level 6 Cleric as CHARNAME). Even with the Shadow armor I bought him, he still is not great at sneaking. So, Edwin just prepares an invisibility or two every day and Monty scouts WHILE searching for traps (which is even better than scouting OR searching).

orosius

You can cut out lockpicking completely by having your mage memorize knock if you don't mind resting to ready them up and use as needed. This saves valuable thief points for other things, like pickpocketing!

Nukenin

Khalid makes an excellent trap detector/remover as well. You may have to periodically resurrect him or find a replacement. (I'm not sure if there are traps that rearm after being set off. If there are, you might run out of Khalids, so be careful!)

toanwrath

Nukenin said:

Khalid makes an excellent trap detector/remover as well. You may have to periodically resurrect him or find a replacement. (I'm not sure if there are traps that rearm after being set off. If there are, you might run out of Khalids, so be careful!)

Am I the ONLY person on the forums who likes Khalid?? Jeez that's mean...

toanwrath

@orosius
That is a pretty good strategy, but I prefer lockpicking. The problems with knock are a.) I prefer masses and masses of glitterdust/invisibility as my 2nd level spells and b.) you don't get the (tiny) exp when casting knock like you do from lockpicking. However, those locks add up and in BG2 they are worth quite a bit more. Just like memorizing spells.

Madhax

Detect Illusions is quite powerful, but doesn't have much application in BG1. Hold off improving it until BG2.

I personally find stealth to be extremely powerful. I'm about to complete my first BG1 run of a F/T, and I've been using backstab so often that it'll feel weird not having that capability in my next run. Chunking enemy mages before they get a spell off is fantastic.

With a few points in open locks, you should be fine. I'm drowning in potions of master thievery at the moment, I found way more than I needed.

With Find Traps... I had never done the TotSC content before, and I had to put it off for a level because my find traps was too low to function. There are LOTS of traps in TotSC. Getting it to 90% did the trick just fine for me, though.